


Exhilaration (Exhalation)

by Nimravidae



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Angry Sex, Breathplay, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild D/S undertones, Rough Sex, Roughness, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, a lot of sinning, light aftercare, pre-establish relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 04:39:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5652778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimravidae/pseuds/Nimravidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With a man court-martialed for sodomy, Ben Tallmadge confronts Washington about the hypocrisies of his actions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exhilaration (Exhalation)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how well this works timing wise with the actual court-martial of Enslin happening in 1778--or how the timeline of his court-martial would go but let's pretend it works like this.

It had happened all in a rush—in a single combined and abhorrent moment. The morning had brought forth whispers around the fires, enlisted men warming their hands as they traded gossip with ill-disguised sneers.

“He’s gettin’ drummed out,” one croaked, his voice almost as vile as the state of his clothing, “should get hanged.”

Another coughed up his own response, “Damn right he should be hanged. Swing ‘em from the gallows.”

Major Benjamin Tallmadge did not like way his gut seared with fear—flaring up like a thrashing storm. He had not heard of anyone being caught spying or stealing, let alone anyone being drummed out with a heavy dishonor upon their hearts. He tried to soothe himself, to brush off the rising ride of anxiety, but it rose every time he’d heard mention of a solider getting caught doing something… sordid.

No one knew, he told himself, no one knew at all.

No one knew the General repaid Benjamin’s good work with kisses, with hands against his skin. No one knew he how he let Benjamin worship him from his knees like a false idol.

No one knew how he whimpered and whined under him—pleading for more.

No one but Major Benjamin Tallmadge and General George Washington.

Well.

And Caleb, but there was no way he would ever… No. Not ever. He was the closest friend Benjamin had had so recently, he’d saved him before Trenton, he’d brought him back from the brink of the abyss. Perhaps it was another thief. Or someone making a plot to overthrow Washington. Or--

“Sodomy,” a worn-looking soldier spat. “No wonder this whole war’s cursed by God.”

Or that.

Ben was going to be sick. He was supposed to be at the General’s tent but his feet were frozen to the hard ground, trapping him. Surely he would have been told. Surely he would have been informed, roused from sleep and hauled in before a court-martial to plea against his sins. They wouldn’t leave it to the General to tell him they had been found out, that Ben alone had been sold as the Godless cretin to the masses.

He’d be drummed out.

He’d be hanged.

His father—oh, what his father would say. He wouldn’t dare even collect his body—no. He’d leave the son he’d never claim again in the dirt and waste of some campsite.

His breathing came in rushed and short pants—sliding thick in his throat—as he desperately tried to reason with himself. It wasn’t him.

It wasn’t him.

It wasn’t him.

They had been so careful. So cautious.

Never even a skating touch with someone around. Not even a blazing catch of eyes while another soul was present to bare witness.

Never.

It wasn’t him.

It wasn’t him.

It wasn’t—“Major Tallmadge!” A voice interrupted his panicked thoughts, cutting through the fog and haze like a firelight.

“The General sent me to press the urgency of your meeting,” the man reminded—sending a jolt through Ben’s system. Right. That’s where he was going—to meet with the General.

“My mistake, Lieutenant, I was caught up in all the gossip.” He tried his best to not stutter through his excuse—but Washington’s aide-de-camp didn’t seem to notice, just nodding in agreement.

“It’s hard to believe Enslin was court-martialed,” He said gravely.

Wait.

“ _Enslin,”_ he practically hissed, part of his fear whisking away into the air, “Enslin was the one court-martialed?”

“Yes, he was court-martialed for sodomy. What story have you been hearing? Washington signed to the letter himself.

Washington.

His gut curled again, but he tried to tamper down the rising sick as he followed the man, “I was just unaware of who the culprit was. I had heard his name around. Lieutenant, right?”

“And now a discarded scrap of a man,” he confirmed, nodding his head with a solemn slowness about him. “How could someone go so against the laws of nature?”

Again.

His chest flamed with an agonizing fire and perhaps that burn of shame was the first hints of the hellfire he would soon be cast down to.

“I know I am grateful that the General made it clear Enslin would never be permitted to be around the camps again.”

Slowly, with the ebbing power of a flame, that sear of shame and disgust carefully formed itself into rage. As the General’s tent came into sight he could feel the tension in his jaw growing—keeping his teeth clenched together against the growing upset.

How dare he cast himself down as a hypocrite.

The flaps of the tent are lifted and the moment he sees the General—his hands folded over his desk, his eyes emotionless and cold—his anger flares hard again. Burning behind his eyes he hardly hears the aide-de-camps dismissal under the roaring of his blood boiling in his ears.

Washington, sitting behind the desk Benjamin had memorized with his chest pressed against it.

Washington, with those lips Benjamin had kissed more times than he would dare count.

Washington, with those hands that had held him until the vessels under his skin broke and rose to bruises in the shapes of his fingers.

With those hands that had fisted in his hair.

With those hands that drew him to his completion.

With hands that had signed a mans life away no less certainly than an execution sentence for the same crime committed in that very tent.

By those very same hands.

He stood with his back ridged and his jaw held so tightly shut it ached.

“I see you have heard about Enslin.”

Temper flaring in Benjamin’s eyes, it took a long moment for him to be able to relax his tongue enough to speak out a firm and clipped, “Yes, sir.”

“This was brought to my attention, it was not something that I could ignore and kept a secret. It was not,” Washington paused, his hands (those damned hands) resting on the desk as he pushed himself from it. “It was not the same.”

The same.

“How?” He found himself asking before he could stop himself. His voice low and unrecognizably scathing, “How was it not the same. Because they didn’t barter information for intimacy it warranted a criminal case? Because he wasn’t me?” His feet moved without his command, fueled by an agonizing feeling buried under all of his ill-restrained rage, something he didn’t want to begin to place. He didn’t speak as though Washington was his superior anymore—he spoke as if he were even with him. Bitter, forceful.  He missed all the warning signs as red blinded his vision “Because he wasn’t _you_? Or because he wasn’t on his knees with his mouth wrapped around your co-“

The words cut off forcibly, a strong hand pulling hard at Benjamin’s necktie and twisting the already tight cloth around his knuckles. His throat singed in an instant, burning as he pulled him up, forcing the Major to his toes to at least let him gasp.

“Do not pretend as though you understand why I did this, Major Tallmadge,” he snarled—nearly against his lips--his eyes of steel piercing through him like a bayonet. “Do you believe I like sending men from this war? Do you honestly believe I find pleasure in my own hypocrisy?”

Ben was silent, each inhale a struggle as his heart pounded harder and harder. He was sure the General could feel it through the layers of clothing and skin and muscle and bone between them. Beating louder than the drums that would cast out Enslin. Beating louder than the wheezing pants of his breath.

But he wasn’t afraid. He was something else entirely. “Well?” His General hissed.

Benjamin managed just to shake his head, no. No he did not believe the General enjoyed the court-martial.

“Then why do you arrive at a meeting that I have summoned you to—for only your benefit—and accuse me of such?” Those cold, war-hardened eyes betrayed him. Falling from Benjamin’s own wide and open gaze down to his parted lips. He couldn’t help his own—slightly weak—smile.

“What are you going to do General,” He rasped through the tightness around his throat. He pushed himself up on the edges of his booths to get as close as he could. Pressed as tight as he could. “Court-martial me?”

Maybe he expected a blow. To his stomach, his face, anywhere.

The kiss, however, was unexpected. Washington released him—letting him stumble and fall and nearly catch himself before his lips were upon him. Crushing and hard, it felt more like a battle within itself than a kiss. Warring teeth and tongues together in a slick mess of saliva and fury.

“Insolent brat,” Washington growled between them before devolving once again into madness. He couldn’t doubt the way his body reacted to the treatment (his filthy, sinful body).

He couldn’t doubt the way Washington made his blood surge from his heart and swell farther down instead.

He couldn’t doubt the way Washington’s leg pressing against him made his mind go hazy but the way his teeth caught his in a bruising hold made him snarl into a vicious kiss.

Washington’s blunt nails scraped long red lines across Benjamin’s skin as he clawed off his shirt and a feverish rush for more skin and Benjamin would normally take refuge in that fact. That Washington wanted him so badly he couldn’t wait for him to strip himself. Instead he had to tear through him like he was nothing, but now, now he fought back.

The only thing Benjamin was left wearing was his loosened necktie and his breeches—now fighting against his evident hardness (just as Washington’s was his own).

There were no games, no pretense of any sense of professionalism and proper behavior between them now. No falsehoods of affection or kindness as a raw and animalistic lust clouded the pair.

Benjamin arched hard as he was slammed into the desk—his bare chest sliding along papers and letters. A large and heavy hand between his shoulder blades kept him pinned down. He was nearly vibrating with a heady mix of lust and rage, writhing against his captivity with less intent to break free and more to simply annoy. To frustrate.

To make him take him harder.

Rougher.

To prove the coward and the hypocrite he is.

Washington’s other hand sunk around his neck, deftly untying his neckcloth and pulling it so it remained wrapped around, but with the tails dangling along his back instead. A shiver ran, unbidden, up his back and he could hardly keep it from happening again as Washington’s hand ran down his back.

“I could ruin you,” he promised, his fingers digging into his hip so hard Benjamin would relish pressing the bruises come morning. “I could.”

“Prove it,” He heard the words gasped from his lips before he could bring himself to think them. He felt like a man possessed—taken apart by himself and put together all wrong—but Washington didn’t seem to mind. He stripped Benjamin of his breeches and kicked at his ankle to spread his legs farther apart. Leaving him exposed, pinned to the desk with his arousal hanging heavy between his legs.

If he hadn’t come to expect it—the spit-slicked fingers teasing him would’ve startled him but he had expected it. After all, he challenged the General.

He’d asked for this, he wanted this man above him, to prove he was no better than Benjamin when it was boiled down to their hearts and only that. That the infallible God on which their budding nation rested its faith upon was mortal, was just as filthy and desperate. He shifted his hips back, teeth imprinting on his hand as the General sunk the first two fingers into him at once. He twisted them roughly inside of Benjamin—letting him feel the burn, letting him relish in the sweet stinging pain of him for a moment.

“Major Tallmadge,” he hissed, digging his fingers deeper with another twist, “you are the most ill-mannered, discourteous officer I have come across.”

Benjamin tried not to whine—to groan loud enough alert anyone. “I bring you here, I let you service me—I service you and I’m repaid in slander,” he curves his fingers just right and Benjamin comes dangerous near drawing blood from his own hand—something fighting in his gut against the arousal. Fear? No. Anger? Not quite. But he feels it, he feels it growing as he’s berated for his insubordination. There was the distinct sound of spit against a hand.

He’s being punished.

Punished for speaking how he did.

Punished for being where he was.

Punished for being how he was.

But that wasn’t shame inside him, it couldn’t be. He knew shame. He’d taken shame with him so many places he knows it better than he knows any other emotion and that wasn’t shame.

It was the rush he got charging from the back of his horse—sword drawn and ready to bite.

It was the moments of freedom mid-fall.

It was the thrill of the guards outside the door as Washington’s hands tightened the tie around his neck and pulled.

He grabbed at it—nails scrabbling at his throat as air cut off from his body and he realized what it was.

Exhilaration.

Raw, potent exhilaration burning through his gut as he felt Washington’s proof of his own sins slide along him. Hot and heavy and turning his flesh to ash wherever he touched.

He couldn’t gasp when he pushed inside him (not slow, not waiting, not patiently letting Benjamin savor it) he couldn’t breathe around the make-shift noose threatening to hang him for his crimes.

And then it dropped. His legs trembling and his chest heaving as he greedily drank in the air around him. He choked on his own half-sobs, cut off by another pull at the noose holding him down.

Sensation overtook him, it twisted through his bones and wrapped itself tight around his constricted lungs. All he could feel was most beautiful burn of Washington inside him, of Washington taking him rough and hard like he was something to just be used, like he was a common whore found in the backs of the worst bars in town. (He let him breathe again)

He felt so alive—so full as each pound of Washington’s hips against him drove his own bones against the edge of the table sparking ecstasy down his spine. He dragged perfectly through him, resonating the ache in his body through his soul as he swallowed moans and whimpers against the skin of his hand as rush and rush and wave and wave of pleasure laced with pain sizzled through his body like bolts of lighting along the night skies.

Washington pulled hard enough back on the cloth at his neck to force Ben’s body into arching with him as he felt the heat rush into him on the edges of rough, wayward thrusts.

He wouldn’t be able to speak properly for days, let alone walk the same.

He wasn’t aware he was crying until a hiccupping breath broke through him—the white cloth tumbling down from his neck to the dust-stained floor. He was ragged, he was trembling with Washington still inside him—he wasn’t quite ruined yet. Not with Washington’s hand running soft along his back.

Not with Washington there.

The hardness had bleed from his voice as he pulled himself from Benjamin—carefully gathering the remains of what had once been a fine Major in his arms. Ben rested his head against his collar, shaky breaths filling his aching lungs.

“I will not let you go,” he promised, soothing away unspoken fears in a gentle voice. “I will not.”

 


End file.
